Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

Very interesting video showing the journey we are on and the levels of truth each of us find. Disclaimer: I did not make the video nor claim the rights to it simply found it a fantastic story.

Women

I know a lot of very religious girls - some of the best friends I have our religious girls. They are some of the nicest, most intelligent people you'd meet, just like anybody else. Yet my problem lies with how women can read the Bible, see what it says about women's roles are in society and still believe. Verses such as those in Timothy that say women have no authority over men and should be silent.  Or verses in the Old Testament stating that women are unclean for 7 days on their period and should not be touched/ anything they touch (Leviticus). The good thing is though, that these verses are followed in Christianity for the most part, and others such in 1 Peter that state women shouldn't braid their hair, wear jewelry or fine clothing are also ignored. But this lies for me - if you openly don't agree with parts of the book in which your moral beliefs and lifestyle are created, then there is a problem here. If you truly believe of the merit the Bible gives you then you should follow it's laws (I understand the Old Testament may not necessarily have to be followed, but Peter and Timothy are just two examples in the N.T. and are therefore considered authoritative) without picking and choosing what appeals to you. People make the counter argument that this was simple directed towards the people of the time, these rules were meant for those during the time period and can be ignored. To that I say exactly! It is clear that the rules contained within the Bible are directed towards those of a certain time period and to take others such as those condemning homosexuality and putting them in a modern context simply makes people seem dated.

The Quran's not much better for those wondering...here's a couple verses allowing polygamy and marrying girls who haven't reached puberty.

Quran 4.3     Quran 65.4

What are your thoughts on all of this? Am I missing something here or does this make sense?

The Story of the Amalekites

This is one of the most troubling stories for me, and has always stood as a barrier between me believing in God. It has become an infamous story in the Hebrew Bible and one I'm not sure I'll ever understand.

"This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt.  Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’"  1 Samuel 15: 2-3 

God is commanding his chosen people to not simply kill the soldiers or those who are attacking, but to commit genocide on an entire race of people, killing even the innocent children and infants. When you take this and compare it to descriptions of God see in Psalms or his commandment to love your neighbor as yourself in Leviticus it becomes quite clear this is a contradiction. How does a loving, merciful God then order the genocide of a neighboring group of people? If your moral arbitrator is responsible for the deaths of children, is that someone you really want to follow? There may be a God but this is where the brazen truth and harsh reality sets in for me - if there is a God and this is what he is like that's still a God I don't want any part of.

Geography

This is for the New York Yankees fan born in Boston,

For the devout Muslim raised in Alabama,

For the Jew praying in India,

For those whose beliefs are not simply an echo of their parents and geography -

This is for those who have searched for themselves and came up with answers.

There should be a problem when you look at a map and you can color in religion like you'd color in the lines in a picture book. 

What are your thoughts? Are you but a product of a time and place in which you were born? If you were born in a rural village in China and raised Budhist and read the Bible, would you be just as certain it was authentic as you are when it's read to you in Sunday school? 

Purpose

For the past four months I have been taking a Religious Studies class at the University of British Columbia. The course is titled "Scriptures of the Near East" and is intended to introduce students to the scriptures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and we have devoted our time to reading and analyzing the texts of the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Qur'an. I was raised in a Christian home and attended private religious secondary schools so my knowledge of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament was more than most, yet I hardly knew anything about the Qur'an other than what you hear about Jihad and terrorism on the news. I knew that my relation to a religious text and terrorism was a very ignorant viewpoint, and the main reason that I desired to take the class. At the beginning we were asked to consider coming up with a 'personal intellectual project' - something that we wanted to gain from the class and the study of the three texts. This blog serves as a means of exploring my personal project. As an admitted hopeful agnostic I want to understand religion. I feel this is a universal cause - whether or not you believe in a god or or, religion has deeply impacted and created the world in which you live. I want to understand how people gain merit from the commandments of those who have authorized genocide, degrade women, and are against homosexuals.

These musings are my own, and would love to hear any thoughts you have to help me and others in the search for truth and authenticity in life. Eric Schmidt the Executive Chairman of Google once said "None of us is as smart as all of us" and this is so true. Blogs are awesome because of the way in which knowledge and ideas can be exchanged so freely.  I shall leave you with an another quote (at least this way if you don't learn anything from my quest, you can hear what some smart people have to say ;) that exemplifies my search and why it is important to understand the texts.

"It means nothing to be open to a proposition we don't understand" Carl Sagan